For A Few Minutes More Read online

  For A Few Minutes More by A. J. Galeyn

  © 2018 A. J. Galeyn

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Sam’s Song Two: For A Few Minutes More

  A Book of Cerulea

  A. J. Galelyn

  Contents

  Extra Life

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Also by A. J. Galelyn

  About the Author

  Notes

  For Crystal, who pretty much dared me to write a book.

  Extra Life

  A potion of the proceeds from this book go to the charity Extra Life.

  Prologue

  Pocketman, Pocketman, give me a gift.

  Give me a smile,

  ‘cause you’re on the grift.

  A coin for me, and you’ll take two;

  the Devil couldn’t get one over on you.

  Pocketman, Pocketman, make me a deal.

  Make it a good one,

  make it a steal.

  I just need something to get me ahead;

  one step from the Reaper, or we’ll both be dead.

  Pocketman, Pocketman, always a trick,

  a card up your sleeve

  you can play real quick.

  I owe you a favor, let me make it two;

  and hope that it saves me when my debts come due.

  Chapter One

  [Hit Points1: -3/15]

  [Debuffs2: (Enervation3) negative levels4: 1]

  [Current Level5: 3 (of 4)]

  The vampire dragged me back to his lair.

  He might easily have carried me. In spite of his thin frame, he had twice my height—after all, he had been human, once. But carrying me was not the point, and so he dragged me through the dark and twisting tunnels, his hand knotted in my short, untamable hair. I was too weak to protest, to even move, and could only watch through wavering consciousness as my broken body bled into the stale water of the sewers and hope at the end of this for the mercy of a monster.

  Yeah, right.

  I had saved the city from the fallout of the disastrously stupid goblin altar but had been unable to save myself from the backlash of energy when the fractured leycrystal exploded, and Keenfang’s unwelcome return had found me amongst the wreckage. If only he had stayed away… but vampires were just never as gone as you wanted them to be.

  Because no good deed goes unpunished, huh? I thought hopefully. Right, Voice? That’s what you always say.

  There was no answering droll sarcasm from my sometimes-present mental guest, only silence in the echoing chambers of my thoughts.

  I knew when we arrived because the tunnel came to a dead end, a solid wall of stone that briefly reflected the dull red glow of the vampire’s eyes. Keen stopped, raised his unoccupied hand, and spoke a few short words which caused the stone to melt and flow away from his hand like ice before dragonfire. He hauled me over the twisted and misshapen rock and, once through, made a negating gesture with his open hand, palm down. The wall reflowed back into place without a trace of our passing.

  On the other side the air was dry and the space was sparsely lit by the cold glow of some unrecognizable machinery off to the side. Keen dropped me in the middle of the floor with the contempt of a discarded toy, and perforce I laid there, unable to concentrate, trying to count my broken bones and not think about my impaled hands. The cut on my cheek, laid open all the way to the bone, hurt worse than anything.

  If I had any hope he had forgotten me, though, it was dispelled when he returned with a length of rope.

  “I told you that I owned you, you little imp.” he snarled at me, then crouched down beside me and began arranging my limbs to his liking. “But you didn’t believe me.”

  He started with my feet, binding them in a neat, professional slipknot, and then ran a length down to my hands, which he tied together behind my back. He was quick and sure about his work, but before I had time to wonder about that, he tossed the other end of the rope up over something on the ceiling and hauled me up. The floor was whisked away and the blood rushed suddenly to my head, bringing me almost eye to eye with the vampire.

  “There.” he said, satisfied, as he tied the rope off to something out of sight. “Now let’s get you talking.”

  He disappeared again, returning with a bottle of glowing magenta liquid which he uncorked and carefully dribbled a few drops onto my inverted form, being careful not to touch any himself.

  The bright liquid instantly permeated my skin, seeping into my blood, into my broken bones. The searing heat of it rushed through me, pushing out the cold from my limbs and the fatigue from my head and the clouds from my vision. The world snapped into focus.

  [Cure Light Wounds6 bestowed: 7 Hit Points]

  [Hit Points: 4/15]

  I took a deep breath, all the way down… err, up to my toes.

  “You ungrateful son-of-a-bitch.” I snarled at him, and it was just about worth it to see the look on his face as I failed to deliver the begging, pleading, or groveling he had been expecting. “I go ahead and save the city, you take all the credit, and the best repayment you can manage is—”

  I expected the blow, but it still came hard and fast.

  [-3 Hit Points, Bludgeoning damage7]

  [Hit Points: 1/15]

  I fought nausea as I tried to curl around my bruised stomach while the inverted scenery spun as I pendulumed around the room on the end of the rope. Abruptly, I was caught again as Keen held me by my shoulders and treated me to an upside down view of vestigial nostrils.

  “Impetuous little imp! You are owed nothing! NOTHING!” he screamed, and I tried to squirm away from his sudden and disproportionate anger. Keen shook his head, got a grip on himself, and tightened his hold on me, clawed fingers making sharp dimples in the flesh of my arms. I stopped struggling. I did not want his claws in me. I did not want the abhorrent, unnatural pain of it, and most of all, I did not want him to know how much I did not want it.

  I wished, very desperately, for Voice’s advice. Well then, I thought. What would Voice say?

  “I have alts, you know.” I told Keen, breezily, quoting something Voice had said once. “Even if you kill me, they’ll report you. And you’ll get banned.”

  This had the unfortunate effect of making Keenfang laugh.

  “Banned for what?” he asked, amused now, his voice back to its usual sneering mockery. “Why, all I’m doing is helping you. You were so gravely injured in the explosion, and, good Samaritan that I am, I’ve been sheltering you while you’re recovering.”

  I forced a laugh in return, though my fake laugh was not nearly as good as his. “You think anyone will think I got these cuts and rope burns from ‘recovering’? You must be even stupider than you look if you think the evidence is in your favor.”

  The word ‘stupid’ earned me another snarl and hard slap.

  [-1 Hit Point, Bludgeoning damage]

  [Hit Points: 0/15]

  The world went grey and woozy again for a moment, but returned in an exhilarating rush as I felt another dose of searing magenta fire.

  [Cure Light Wounds bestowed: 9
Hit Points]

  [Hit Points: 9/15]

  “What evidence?” Keen asked oh-so-innocently as he restoppered the bottle. “I can buy healing potions at the Temple for five gold a pop, and keep you alive with them as long as I want. And believe me when I say,” he shifted his grip to my head to hold me face to face with him, “that when it comes to extending the pleasure of your stay, money is no object. No object at all.”

  I thought of the massive amount of gold he had so casually dropped the last time we were at the Temple, thought about his tenacious hatred, and found myself, for the first time in my life, afraid of another person. If you could call him a person. “You’re evil.” I whispered.

  “Evil? No, I’m not. How can I be evil,” he smiled, “when no one even dies?”

  Keen turned and disappeared behind me for a moment, then returned hauling a large armchair into view, which he set up about ten feet away from me. He sprawled into it comfortably, lounging, one leg tossed over an overstuffed arm, and pulled from somewhere a folding crossbow and a quiver of bolts. He made a big show of ignoring me and fiddling with the weapon, unfolding the limbs, latching them into place, and pulling on the lever to cock back the string. When he was sure he had my full attention, he reached into the quiver, removed a bolt with a wicked looking, serrated metal head, and, looking directly at me, dipped it into the magenta potion.

  What the…?

  He loaded the crossbow, slowly, savoring the implications as they sank in, and then pointed the weapon at me and fired.

  Thwang!

  The bolt shot into the flesh of my upper arm, and then through it, and then on to clatter in the darkness behind me. I cried out as I spun around. Pain flared; intense, powerful, overwhelming, and the world threatened to go grey again, but almost as soon as it did, I felt the healing heat of the potion stitching up the flesh, reconnecting the blood vessels, erasing the gash as if it had never existed. I craned my head over to look at my arm, but there was nothing there but a smear of blood over unbroken skin and the memory of pain.

  “See?” said Keen, delighted, as the room slowly orbited around. “No evidence, no crime.”

  I felt sick, and not just from hanging upside down. “There’s something wrong with you.” I told him, again.

  “What are you going to do, report me? Oh wait, you can’t.” Keen reloaded another magenta tipped bolt. “But just in case, let’s talk about these alts of yours. Who are they?”

  “I don’t know.” I lied. I knew Voice had someone named Ingenium, but I had never met him.

  “Wrong answer!”

  Thwang!

  I bit back my cry this time as the bolt sliced by my hip with another burst of hurt-then-heal.

  “Come on, don’t you use some kind of naming convention, Samiel? Is there a Samiel2, or xxxSamielxxx out there? How many of there are you?”

  “Nope.” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m the one and only.”

  Thwang!

  This time I did scream, as the bolt thunked solidly into my thigh and stuck there. Get it out! I thought franticly at it. Get it out, get it out of my leg before… But it was already too late, and the healing potion began sealing the flesh around it, stopping the bleeding, forming scar tissue around the barbs and encasing it solidly in my flesh.

  “Nevermind.” Keen looked as if an idea had just occurred to him. “I can find them later. Why don’t you tell me,” he dipped another bolt, while I glared at it in pure crimson hatred, “your account info?”

  He sounded just like Voice. “My what?”

  Thwang!

  “Your login, and password. Come on now, I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

  At my continued silence, Keen shot a few more bolts at me, occasionally punctuated by cryptic comments that increasingly reminded me of the Voice in my head, which was worrying on a lot of levels. I kept my mouth shut and my screams inside.

  Eventually Keen said “What?” in a tone indicating he wasn’t talking to me. I opened my eyes. He had his hand up to the sirenstone in his ear. “Yeah, ok. I can come. Save me a spot.”

  “Well.” he said, sauntering up to me and standing too close. He casually reached around to stop the slow, dizzying spin imparted by his last shot, and my skin tried to crawl off my bones in an attempt to get away from his touch. I was unable to suppress a shiver. “I’ve enjoyed our little chat, but I have exciting, important things to go do. Why don’t you wait right here…” At this he very delicately placed one long finger on the shaft of the bolt embedded in my thigh, “and I’ll be back soon enough.” He plucked at the shaft like it was a taught lute string, and I clenched my teeth on a moan of pain at the tearing of muscle in my leg as the serrated head scraped on bone and newly healed flesh. This time, there was no answering magenta heat since the healing potion had already been absorbed. Instead, a small trickle of blood ran down the shaft and onto his finger.

  Finally letting me go, Keen stepped back, gave me his trademark fake smile, and licked the drop of blood from his finger with a long, pale tongue. Then, still smug as a cat, he drew a Dimension Door onto the wall and vanished into the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  I turned my head and spat out the sour taste of proximity-to-assholes induced bile. “You shouldn’t have gotten so close, you bastard.”

  [Sleight of Hand1 check: Success]

  It hadn’t been easy to pick his pocket inside his sleeve while upside down and tied up, but I had managed to lift what felt, by its shape and weight, to be his illusi-frame.

 

  “Voice!” The pain was momentarily washed away by a wave of relief and elation. “You’re back!”

  Voice took a deep breath.

  In spite of my situation, I found myself grinning. “Oh, so I’m your favorite, now?” I teased, but that made me think of something. “Keen kept asking about alts.” I frowned worriedly. “He wanted to know… stuff. He talked… like you do sometimes.” When you’re not making any sense.

  Voice snorted indignantly.

  “I think he’s got that part covered.”

 

  I tried to wiggle my feet around, but the slipknot had tightened as I hung, and gripped my ankles like a miser’s very last coin.

  [Escape Artist2 check: Failed]

  My hands, likewise, were not coming out of this rope. I wished for my daggers, but they had fallen when Keen hung me up, and were out of reach on the floor where he had kicked them away. Any sharp edge will do. I thought, frustrated. A sharp rock, a piece of glass… I flexed against my bonds, and the bolt in my leg ached in sympathy.

  …a serrated bolt head?

  I craned my neck up to look, then took a deep breath, and clenched my stomach muscles for an inverted, full body sit up. My bound hands had to slide up along the back of my legs, and there were a few moments where I thought my abdominals were just going to give up the ghost (stupid dumped Strength), but I was able to hold my position with my arms wrapped around my thighs, take another breath, and fold myself in half. My face now pressed to my knees, I closed my eyes against the pain, grabbed hold of the bolt shaft with my teeth, and unfolded myself with a jerk.

  [-1 Hit Point, Piercing damage3]

  [Hit Points: 8/15]

 
The bolt ripped loose from my thigh in a spurt of pain and blood, and I used several nasty words I had learned from Voice, cussing around the projectile clenched in my teeth. Another couple of breaths to calm myself, and then I turned my head so gravity was assisting me and carefully let the bolt slide through my teeth, chomping down again on the fletching before it could fall.

  [Dexterity4 check: Success]

  Now armed with the bolt held in my mouth like the worlds strangest and least effective toothpick, I did another sit-up and passed it around my knees to my hands. It was just long enough to reach. I had one terrible moment where I thought my numb fingers were going to drop it, but I managed to get a grip.

  It was then the matter of a minute to use the edge to saw through the rope binding my wrists, and then another sit-up, and it sure was a good thing I was a halfling and I didn’t have much mass for my poor abused abs to lift, and I sawed away at the rope around my ankles.

  [Escape Artist check: Success]

  The last strands of rope frayed and snapped, and I thumped to the ground in an ignoble heap. I sat up, brushed myself off, and tried to stand up but ended up going sideways as my numb feet refused to find their balance underneath me.